This study analyzes the Black Student Movement of the 1960s by examining the generation of insurgency at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, the birthplace of the movement. In an attempt to thoroughly document the rise and decline of the Black Student Movement, the research utilizes the political process model of social movements. This model contends that various factors lead to the rise and decline of generations of insurgency. The study applies these factors to the Black Student Movement as exemplified at A&T in an effort to determine why it was this particular institution that best captured the evolution of the Black Student Movement throughout the decade of the sixties.
In order to apply the factors of the political process model, the research includes interviews conducted with movement participants during this particular generation of insurgency at A&T. Representing various segments of the indigenous population, the movement participants interviewed provide further clarity and understanding to the dynamics of the Black Student Movement as embodied through the collective protest of students who attended A&T. In addition, members of the Black community have also provided a detailed analysis of the unique relationship between the Black educational institutions of Greensboro and the indigenous population. Existing research and social artifacts are also used to further highlight the generation of insurgency at A&T.
The results of this research detail the peculiar nature of students who attended A&T, and how it was these unique characteristics that designated this particular group of students as the pioneers of the Black Student Movement. As the research indicates, this defining characteristic was largely influenced by the various environmental factors that shaped and molded the generation of insurgency. These factors included the relationship between students and the school administration as well as the relationship forged between the Black community of Greensboro. The study concludes that new theoretical explanations, as well as factors that the political process model establish as key to the rise and decline of insurgency, played a significant role in the establishment of A&T and Greensboro, NC as a center of Black insurgency throughout the decade of the sixties.